OnBase Government Case Study

The Challenge

One of the Treasury’s main responsibilities is to make sure eligible citizens get funds they’ve been approved to receive. Even in times of high demand, these payments – like unemployment and other supplementary payments – must be processed quickly and efficiently. Additionally, because the Commonwealth was outsourcing the processing to the Social Security Administration, some payments would have cost more than $10 each to process. And with more than 300,000 payments going out each month, the expenses quickly added up.

The Treasury went in search of a solution that would help them transform its paper-based processes to electronic. After lengthy request for information (RFI) and request for proposal (RFP) processes, the Treasury narrowed its product choices to three. In the end, though, there was one thing that stood out across the field of vendors.

The Solution

Working with KeyMark (formerly IMR), the Treasury purchased OnBase and implemented it to support and drive three of its most important processes.

In fact, despite the increase in demand, the Treasury needs little interaction with the process to ensure citizens receive their checks reliably and on time. Using OnBase’s Workflow, 99 percent of these transactions are completely electronic – beginning with the time a citizen files an application to the time they receive their check. Just as impressive, the Treasury enables citizens to have their payments issued via direct deposit or debit card. Less than one percent of citizens receive paper checks. Even when Congress stopped and started the flow of unemployment benefits with its extensions, the Treasury was able to keep up.

The Results

Since installing OnBase, the Treasury has avoided hundreds of millions of dollars in costs across many processes.

KeyMark’s Solution also improved another critical process for the Treasury, the State Supplementary Payment (SSP) process. In terms of pure return on investment (ROI), the Treasury achieved its ROI in less than eight hours with this process.

Prior to 2005, the Department of Human Services (DHS) contracted with the Social Security Administration to administer SSP payments. However, this would have cost the Treasury more than $10 to process each payment. And at more than 300,000 payments to send each month, this cost the department more than $30 million each year.

By taking over the process itself and completely automating it, the Commonwealth significantly reduced the cost for each transaction.

With the help of KeyMark, the Treasury has sped up processes across the organization and responded to constituent need faster. One of its most notable successes is the automation of the unemployment payment process. Even before the deluge of requests started pouring in during late 2008, the Treasury battled truckloads of paper to manage this process.

About Pennsylvania Treasury Department

Although many may think of the Pennsylvania Treasury as a virtual checkbook for many of the Commonwealth’s citizens, the organization does much more. It helps keep taxes low by investing taxpayer money and offers other financial resources like college savings programs. They are located in Harrisburg, PA.